The car built by gamers

This article was taken from the March 2011 issue of Wired
magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before
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Driving simulators were once a pale imitation of the real
thing; now, video games are teaching
design tricks to carmakers. "When you're flinging a car around the
track on a video game, you're switching rapidly to check speed and
other things; you need your instruments to show you the data very
quickly," says Simon Sproule, corporate vice-president of global
communications at Nissan. "The same is true at 180mph on an
autobahn in the real world: you need an information system that's
easy and quick to read."

So when the car manufacturer wanted to create a display that
would visualise an unprecedented amount of data from its flagship
GT-R supercar (enhanced model out soon), allowing the driver "to
measure almost any performance attribute of their vehicle", and
present it to them simply, there was an obvious inspiration: Gran Turismo. "The GT-R is a
car that came of age during the video-game era," says 42-year-old
Sproule. "It had this underground following on Gran Turismo. [Our
designers] were really inspired by that whole Japanese counterculture around manga and
video games."

So, as Japanese game developer Polyphony Digital had created the
franchise, Nissan worked with them to devise the GT-R's
Multi-Function Meter, which sits in the centre console of the car.
The touch-sensitive screen shows not only mechanical information,
such as water temperature, oil temperature and pressure, and how
torque is split between front and rear, but also driving data: how
far the accelerator is open, steering angle and the G-force from
changes in both direction and speed. Knowing these parameters has
real driving benefits. For example, the display gives a read-out of
the previous 20 seconds. Combining the Gs for deceleration,
cornering and acceleration over this period can reveal the amount
of grip left on tyres.

Kazunori Yamauchi, CEO of Polyphony Digital -- and a
professional racing driver -- tested the final interface in the studio and
on the tough Nürburgring racing circuit in Germany. He says it was
the most precise lap of his career: "To clearly define the edge in
sports driving -- that has always been spoken of vaguely, until
now." gtrnissan.com